: late Oct-early Apr with from early Oct and to early May. When present they are noisy and conspicuous in weedy fields, alder and birch groves. Redpolls sometimes arrive in numbers as late as Feb/early Mar and these late influxes often end up at bird feeders. There are no mid May-mid Oct records.
Miscellany: Redpoll ‘irruptions’ occur when the seed crop of northern trees, especially spruce and birch, fails forcing the birds to move south in search of food. These seed crops are often on a two-year cycle but the failure rate in ‘off’ years varies; when it’s very high, we get our biggest invasions of redpolls. These large Common Redpoll irruptions often carry with them a few Hoary Redpolls (Acanthis hornemanni), a species with no accepted records, but likely overlooked.
Last Updated: April 27th, 2022